Lawyer for the Cat (17 page)

*   *   *

“You might want to look this over before your trip,” says Gina. “It was in there—in the cat box—with the packet with the letters from that Simon guy. It's from the nephew.”

The note is attached to a clipping—yellowed, folded into a small envelope—from
The New York Times Book Review
.

Dear Aunt Lila,

As you can see, my little book has attracted some notice. Your copy will arrive under separate cover. I hope you won't mind that I've stolen from your personal history with the poem “That Other Life.” I've also sent a copy of the book to Simon, since “that other life” might have been his, as well. While the poem should speak for itself, I hope that you'll not take it as a reprimand but as a reminder, from someone who has made his share of mistakes, that pride and love can be quarrelsome partners. By the way, speaking of partners, you'll remember that after Jeremy died you cautioned me against self-pity and urged me to seek companionship. I'm too set in my ways, my dear Aunt, to risk another adventure in human love, but I've adopted a cat. I call her Sphinx. She's an elegant creature, a little feisty and opinionated, but she's a practical animal and she's decided she'll have to make do with this middle-aged poet.

Love always, Philip

“I googled him,” Gina says. “He won a couple of awards for poetry books, but then he wrote a kids' book about a little boy whose best friend is a cat. It was a bestseller.”

“So maybe he's the one,” I say.

“Except that in that interview he seems like, you know, a totally New York sort of person. I can't imagine him living out on Edisto. What is it, fifty miles to the nearest bookstore?”

“There's a great little bookstore on the island. Right on the main road. And you haven't seen the house—Mrs. Mackay's—but I can imagine a poet living there. It's run-down, but it has lots of history. Even a ghost.”

“I'll take your word for it.”

“And anyway, she's the one who put him on the list, along with the other two. She must have thought he might be willing to move.”

“She could have saved you a lot of trouble if she'd just made the choice herself,” says Gina. “But at least they aren't all fighting over Beatrice,” says Gina, “like the Harts fought over
him.
” She points to the photo of Sherman. “And you get a free trip to New York. You could see a show, do some shopping.”

“It's just overnight.”

“You should have stayed through the weekend, at least, and taken the vet.”

“He's going to California to see his son.”

“I didn't know he had a kid,” she says.

“He's thirteen.”

“So it's complicated.”

“Isn't it always?”

 

Then There's Hope

I don't need Ed Shand in my living room the night before I leave. I don't need Ed Shand in my living room
ever
.
Here they are, Ed and my mother, sitting on the sofa, chatting away as if they've been together forever. He stands when I come in, extends his hand, says, “You probably don't remember me.…” But of course I do. I remember Ed and his wife—Roberta, wasn't it?—from Columbia. He sang in the choir. She was on the altar guild with Mom. My father couldn't stand him, probably because my mother thought he was “charming, and so accomplished.” The Shands lived in a neighborhood of big houses and wide lawns only a mile away from Monroe Street, where our brick bungalow on its tiny lot looked much the same as the other bungalows that lined the street. My father hoped to cure Mom's disappointment by adding a den onto the back of the house, but the addition only made the rest of the rooms seem cramped and dark.

The Shands once invited us to a barbecue and, of course, Dad made up some excuse to avoid going, but Mom took me. As the adults sipped away on gin and tonics on the patio and the younger children shot each other with water guns, Mrs. Shand led me inside to the den, turned on the television, gave me a glass of lemonade. “Just make yourself at home,” she said, which I interpreted to mean I was free to poke around in the bookcases and peruse the family photo albums, but as the party stretched into the night I wandered into the master bedroom, where I found a paperback under a stack of magazines on a bedside table:
Ten Steps to a Better Marriage
.

I sat on the king-sized bed (satiny bedspread, down pillows) to read it but by Step Four (“Never Go to Sleep Angry”) I was bored, so I resumed my investigation of the premises, this time finding something infinitely more interesting in a drawer on the other side of the bed: a magazine with photos of naked men and women doing things I'd never imagined men and women could do.

What to do with this treasure? I knew my best friend Janie would kill me if I didn't show her, and maybe, I thought, her older sister could explain what was going on in the pictures. So I ripped out a few of the choicest photos, folded them several times until they fit in the pocket of my shorts, and went back to the den, where the TV was droning and my glass of lemonade had made a ring on the coffee table.

Later, when my mother insisted I “be polite to the other children,” I went back outside, where the grown-ups were loudly boozy and the boys were talking about what kind of cars they would get when they were old enough to drive. I sat watching Mrs. Shand eyeing my mother as Ed told bad jokes—my mother laughing too loud, throwing her head back and showing off her thick hair and her long beautiful neck.

“I need to get home to finish my homework,” I said, standing up with as much forcefulness as I could muster. I'd done my homework before we left home, and Mom knew that. She didn't argue, though. She drove home without saying anything, our silence as thick as the descending darkness. The next afternoon, as she presented me with the pictures she'd found in the pocket of my shorts in the laundry basket, she was disturbingly calm.

“Where did you get these?” she asked.

“In their bedroom.”

“You shouldn't make things up.”

“I swear.” And so as not to waste the opportunity, I said, “Mr. Shand is disgusting. And you're disgusting, too, when you flirt with him like that.”

She'd held back until then, but I'd pushed her too far, and she slapped me. I refused to cry. I wouldn't let her have the satisfaction. Now, with Ed Shand in my living room and my mother looking up at him adoringly, I'd like to slap her back.

But instead I'm shaking his hand. “Of course I remember you,” I say. “Please—sit back down.”

“Delores here was just telling me about your law practice,” he says. “I'm not surprised that Margaret's daughter is so successful.”

“It's a small practice,” I say.

“She won't brag on herself,” says Delores.

“I hear you have a specialty in dogs and cats,” he says, smiling. He resumes his place on the sofa, his leg touching my mother's.

“One dog and one cat, so far,” I say. “Would you excuse us for a moment? I need to talk to Delores.”

Back in my bedroom, I close the door. “How long has he been here?”

“Just a little while. He's a nice man.”

“I don't trust him.”

“You think that old man can still do anything? No way,” she says. “About all he can do is think about it.”

“He could hurt her feelings.”

“All they been doing is talking about the old days.”

“Don't you think it's a little strange that he just happens to move into this building … all the way from Columbia?”

“He didn't even know Miz Margaret lived here. That's what he says, and he seems like a gentleman.”

“I want you to promise me that you won't
ever
leave them alone together,” I say. “I'll be out of town tomorrow and Friday, remember, and if anything should happen—”

“You got lots more things to worry about than your mama and that skinny old man,” Delores says.

“He can't possibly think there's any future in it.”

“Maybe he's got enough sense to just enjoy himself right now, not to worry himself about the future.”

“But not at her expense.”

“You see her in there? Happy as a lark.”

“Tomorrow she might not remember his name.”

“Don't take this wrong,” Delores says, “but maybe you should worry about your own man problems.” Before I can respond she puts her hand on my shoulder. “And don't you worry, I'll make sure he behaves himself.”

*   *   *

It's past ten, and Tony's voice through the telephone has that gravelly, asleep-already sound.

“I woke you. I'm sorry.”

“No … you didn't. I was just drifting off. Talk to me.”

“I think Mom's lonely.”

“I doubt it,” he says. “She's got Delores and … what's her name … the other lady?”

“Shenille.”

“And you, of course.”

I can see him stretched out on the bed in his undershorts and a T-shirt, a paperback splayed open beside him, the dogs on the floor around the bed.

“How's Beatrice?”

“She's right here next to me. The dogs are a little jealous. Susie and Sheba used to sleep with me when they were puppies, but when Carmen came I had to banish them—this isn't a three-dog bed. Now they don't understand why this other creature gets to sleep with me.”

“I wonder if they feel the same way about me.”

“I don't think so,” he says, laughing. “They understand you're one of my species. But this cat—that's another matter.”

“I hope she'll be okay until I can pick her up.”

“She'll be fine. Maureen will come in the morning to let the dogs out, and then again at the end of the day.”

“That's a lot of trouble.”

“She doesn't mind. I return the favor with her dogs when she's out of town.”

“Did you tell her about the problem?”

“I gave her a heads-up.”

“Don't forget to tell her I'm hoping to get out there Friday night.”

“Why not just wait until Saturday morning?”

“It's easier for me to drive out there straight from the airport. Shenille will stay with Mom until I get home.”

“Whatever suits you,” he says. “By the way, the gate will be locked. You have the combination, right? Bring a flashlight.”

“That's a good idea—the gate, I mean.”

“Remember the cat's welcome to stay here indefinitely.”

“Mom will like having the cat around. It's Delores who'll be unhappy.”

“Beatrice is no trouble.”

“I know, but after that whole thing with Sherman, Delores has an attitude about me bringing animals home. I think she liked Sherman, but she'd never admit it.”

“If she keeps working for you, she'll have to get used to the whole menagerie.”

“What?”

“You, me, your mother, Delores, and Shenille. The dogs. And my son, if he'll ever come.” He waits for me to say something. I can hear the cat's loud purring. “Okay, I'm sorry. I shouldn't push you.… So, what's this about your mother being lonely?”

“She seems like a different person with Ed Shand around—more like her old self.”

“Maybe he reminds her of the essentials.”

“What?”

“She might be almost eighty, but she's still a woman.”

“I don't trust him.”

“What's he going to do, run off with her?

“She's so vulnerable.”

“You know what I think?” he says. “I think we're talking about you, not your mother.”

“Don't psychoanalyze me, okay?… So, are you nervous, about Jake?”

“You're changing the subject. But, yes, I am.”

“He's got to appreciate that you're being so flexible, changing your schedule to fly out there at the last minute.”

“I don't think he sees it that way. As far as he's concerned, his parents should have been able to work things out, stay together, so that he didn't have to go back and forth.”

“But you're doing your best.”

“I am, but even at my best I'm still a pain in the ass.”

“I disagree.”

“Then there's hope,” he says.

“Will you call me, let me know how it's going?”

“Text me when you're back from New York,” he says, “and don't fall for the poet.”

“Don't be ridiculous.” Of course I won't fall for the poet. But I know what he's really worried about, and there's nothing I can say—at least nothing honest—to reassure him about that.

 

What Were You Thinking?

From the air, before the plane banks and turns, I can see my condo building, the Cooper River, the bridge like some mythical creature with its gleaming white skeleton, and as we ascend, the harbor and the shimmering Atlantic, the network of creeks and rivers on the west side of town, where Tony is pouring his first cup of coffee in the little house, the dogs circling the kitchen, waiting to be let out. Beatrice doesn't like the dogs' commotion—all that juvenile eagerness—so she'll remain in his bedroom, on the unmade bed or the chair, until the kitchen is quiet again. Then she'll pad out, rub her back against his calves while he fixes her breakfast, talks to her.

He talks to the dogs, too, but with them he's relaxed, his monologue a gentle, easy patter, or, if they're being stubborn or loud, a mild half-joking reproach. With Beatrice he's more reserved. “We're just getting to know each other,” he said when I pointed that out. “I don't like to be presumptuous.”

“But you call her ‘honey,'” I said.

“She doesn't mind a little affection,” he explained, “as long as it's respectful.”

I miss him already, miss the menagerie, the sweet chaos of his cottage, but could I live with him there—or anywhere? It isn't just the logistical challenge, the merging of two people with busy careers. There's also my mother, and the teenager I haven't even met. The thought of all of us together, even for a weekend, unnerves me.
We'll work it all out
, Tony says. Maybe he's right, but that's almost exactly what Joe Baynard said before our wedding, when I panicked that his family wouldn't like me. I realize now what I didn't understand then: What I really feared was that I couldn't be the wife Joe needed, and that we were both fooling ourselves to think I could be.